To comply with the American College of Radiology Quality Assurance regulations for quality control of radioactive seed activity, a minimum of 10% of radioactive seeds intended for patient usage must be assayed. To comply with these requirements, a radioactive seed is placed by long handle forceps into a plastic tray and lowered to the bottom of a well of a well calibrator or a well of a well counter. One seed at a time is lowered to and then removed from the bottom of the well.
At specific well calibrator settings for a particular nuclide, the radioactive activity is displayed and can then be recorded. This procedure results in unnecessary radioactive exposure to an individual charged with testing the seeds.